V 1
The V1 Flying Bomb, also known as a 'buzz bomb' or 'doodlebug', was one of the most fear-inducing terror weapons of the Second World War. In the face of relentless Allied bombing of German cities, Hitler created its 'revenge weapons' (Vergeltungswaffen) in an attempt to terrorize British civilians and undermine morale.
But alongside the civilians killed and wounded by the V-1 are the forgotten victims of the vengeance weapons, the people who made them. Tens of thousands of slave laborer’s from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp lost their lives building the tunnels where the weapons were made.
V 2
The German V-2 rocket was the world's first large-scale liquid-propellant rocket vehicle, the first long-range ballistic missile, and the ancestor of today's large rockets and launch vehicles. Called the A-4 (Aggregat 4) by German Army Ordnance, the rocket was dubbed V-2, or Vergeltungswaffe Zwei ("Vengeance Weapon Two"), by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry when its existence was publicly announced in November 1944, two months after first deployment as a weapon. Launched from mobile platforms, the missile had a maximum range of about 320 km (200 miles) and a one-ton warhead. At least 10,000 concentration camp workers died in the process of manufacturing it.
V 3
The V-3 “supergun” was meant to win the war for Germany. In 1943, for the first time since World War II began, Hitler was on the back foot. Allied bombs were devastating German cities and the Fuhrer was rattled. His proposed V-3 cannon would be the biggest gun the world had seen.
The V-3 was built in a truly enormous bunker buried deep in a chalk hill in northern France. Millions of tonnes of rock were excavated by hand and among the workers were hundreds of slave labourers. In its original conception, 25 barrels were to point at London – about 100 miles away – delivering up to one bomb per minute and to create an environment of fear that would turn the course of the war back in Hitler’s favour.